Pouring of a Hearth and installing of the Oven

The last two weekends have been great. While I have been working on the oven project my wife and 2 year old son are taking their turns watching, asking questions and advising me on what to do next.

My next step was to pour a 4 inch thick slab of concrete (hearth) that has 1/2" rebar laid throughout. After thinking about the structural integrity of the hearth I decided to add a single row of cinder blocks coming from one corner into the middle of the hearth. Even though mathematically it is not necessary, my gut told me that I will sleep better knowing it is there to support the main weight of the oven dome. I also decided to pour "inside the existing" walls instead of on top. In order to accomplish this I cut 3" chunks out of the top layer of the cinder blocks. That gave me the room I needed to build the rebar checker board. Underneath I built a frame of 2x4's and put a level of plywood on top. The added cinder blocks in the corner were cut to be level with the plywood.

At one point on that Saturday I had all the power tools I own out of my shed and was using them all. Talk about a man/geek moment!!!

The actual mixing of the concrete and pouring of the hearth was the final step for the day and went smooth and without a hitch. Took the least amount of time and after letting it settle for a bit I used a left over 2x6 to flatten the area and smooth out the top. As you can see in the picture, yours truly was able to build a foundation, walls and hearth that is perfectly level. It made the next step so much easier.

As I mentioned before I plan things out in my head and on paper ad nausea before I ever utter a word to friends and family. So by the time I do talk about it I have long made up my mind and know what I want. Makes things easy when you are alone on an island and nobody give a sh.. about what you do. When you are ripping out plants that your wife planted and replace them with a cinder block and concrete structure that doesn't work. You need to communicate first and make your desires known the the powers at be and they will decide if you get to do this in the first place. I have to say, my wife is great (aren't you honey :) ) She can be easily convinced of the "need" for a 1000 lbs wood burning oven in the back yard. All it has to do is work properly when she wants it to and look nice with the rest of the current back yard layout. The time it takes to build was also a major concern, which leads me to the oven itself.

I researched a lot of different versions and spent countless evenings online researching the best way to do this project economically in both time and cost. I found a website: http://www.fornobravo.com/ that is probably the answer to every mans dream when it comes to wood burning pizza ovens. Not only do they have a forum for advise but also the tools, plans and ovens you would want in your back yard. I had decided on a pre-fabricated version that would be delivered and put on top of my current build.

Easy, one day, done!

Weeeeeellllll not so fast, when it came to ordering the oven I actually chatted with their rep at length and he offered this little bit of info: "you need to provide your own fork lift, unload the oven from the truck and install the thing yourself." WHAT???? You are kidding, where do I get a forklift from? Even if I can drive the thing, I don't know how to install/slide the 1500 lbs oven from the palette onto the hearth. So I hung up with the company rep and needed to regroup. What I mean by that is that I didn't sleep for 2 nights, kept thinking about it and then discussed it with my wife.

To make a long story short, I didn't buy a finished, pre-built oven after all. I built it myself. The same company supplies you with a pre-fab dome and a 50 page instruction manual as to how to build your own oven from scratch. So I ordered the dome and the floor and all the other pieces separately and started on the construction of the oven itself. It took 8 hours to build the structure and put the first layer of High-heat mortar on. While the mortar dried I started cutting the red brick entry arch to the oven and laid it all out. After that it was back to home depot to get more materials for all the finish work. More on that on my next entry.